The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Walt Disney or simply Disney (/ˈdɪzni/), is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. It is the world's largest independent media conglomerate in terms of revenue ahead of NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia, which are owned by telecommunications giants Comcast and AT&T respectively. The company was founded on October 16, 1923 – by brothers Walt and Roy Disney – as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before officially changing its name to Walt Disney Company in 1986. The company grew to establish itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. Since the 1980s, Disney has created and acquired corporate divisions in order to market more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands. The company is known for its film studio, Walt Disney Studios, which is today one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema. Disney's other main divisions are Walt Disney Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products, Disney Media Networks, and Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E Networks, and Freeform; publishing, merchandising, music, and theater divisions; and owns and licenses Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a group of 14 theme parks around the world. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1991. Mickey Mouse, a cartoon created in 1928, is the signature mascot and emblem for Disney, and one of the world's most recognizable characters. On December 14, 2017, Disney announced an agreement to merge with 21st Century Fox for $52 billion. The bid was later increased to $71 billion in June 2018 in the wake of the completed acquisition of Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) by AT&T. The newly merged entity will retain the former company's name, meaning The Walt Disney Company will remain as the name of the merged business. Similarities in feature animation Disney and Universal Studios have shown a strong resemblance in the animation market such as: *Both are competitors in the theme park market. *Both operate two feature animation units (Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar for Disney) and (Universal Animation Studios and Illumination Entertainment for Universal) whose feature films achieved critical and box office successes. *Both did not release a 2014 animated film by one of their animation studios (Pixar for Disney and Illumination for Universal). *Both enjoy success with animated films. *Both Disney and Universal have released three animated films in each other year (e.g; for Universal, 2015 saw the releases of Paradoria, Minions and Luna & Zak, and for Disney, 2016 saw the releases of Zootopia, Finding Dory and Moana). *Both released 2014 animated films that feature a young protagonist (Gabriel Garza for Universal's Gabriel Garza 2 and Hiro Hamada for Disney's Big Hero 6). *Disney and Universal have 2015 and 2016 that mark the first time that each of their two animation studios had released two films in the same year; 2015 marked the first year for Pixar and Universal Animation to release two films (Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur for Pixar) and (Paradoria and Luna & Zak for Universal) in a year and the next year 2016 marked the first time that Disney Animation and Illumination released two films (Zootopia and Moana for Disney) and (The Secret Life of Pets and Sing for Illumination) in the same year. *Both released 2016 animated films that take place in a modern world of anthropomorphic animals (Zootopia for Disney and Sing for Universal/Illumination). *Both release 2018 animated films (sequels) that take place in the internet (Computeropolis: The Deep Web for Universal and Ralph Breaks the Internet for Disney). Analogy Sorted by release date, budget, gross, and ratings Universal = Released : Combines live-action with animation. Upcoming |-|Disney = Released :Note: Only the films starting with the Disney Renaissance era are counted in this section. : Combines live-action with animation. Upcoming Trivia Coming soon! Category:Companies Category:Non-Universal